quote:
Originally posted by geepeeone:
I said my earlier post was the last but I just have to say, one last thing, Very well spoken point.
I like your explantion regarding revision costs would be allocated more on the technical merits of the program much like the same way as textbooks.
Thank you.
QUOTE]Originally posted by anonymousman:
[b]Ammends accepted. Granted, I got a little overheated, too. Another messageboard I was on gave me a hard time about something else, and it carried over when I went back to this board (of course, my name on this board really isn't anonymousman, but that's our secret).
So anyway, there are some good points in your last post. It's clear now that you didn't feel cheated because you felt Paul was a sham, you felt cheated because you felt that it was a sign of carelessness and that you purchased a product that still has "bugs" in it. That's fair enough, and worth debating, I think.
The comparison to a book is interesting. Now, this is definately not in comparison to any kind of poetic license, since a book like "Flowers for Alergnon" (diary by a mentally disabled person) is chock full of grammatical errors on purpose. Since the tape is probably not purposefully incorrect, we'll compare it more with a textbook, which I think is pretty fair.
Now, like a textbook, copies are pressed in what's kind of a medium supply; it's not a small print like a self-published book, and it's not a mass print like a Stephen King book. Unfortunately, it's this grey area where the publisher isn't really all that rich (in other words, can afford many reprints), but large enough that they have a moderately sized audience.
The truth is, despite how large LSC may appear, they're not Bantam, Random House, or Goldenbooks. If they're going to spend money, it won't be on a grammatical error. It would have to be a factual error dealing with the system, or an explanation that's confusing. The situation isn't all that uncommon; a science textbook may have several grammatical errors as well as typos (incorrectly sequenced diagrams, indexes that are off by a page number or two) and the edition will continue to be in use until, really, something is just proven completely wrong in the textbook. That's why for the most part used science textbooks will be accurate and in use for years.
You're right, grammatical errors can be a sign of a lack of professionalism. But Scheele's grammar error is a pretty normal linguistic error, like how everyone incorrectly uses the word "hopefully" (trust me, EVERYONE misuses that one) or how we all use split infinitives (like "to boldly go" or "to completely rinse" - those are both incorrect, and should be "to go boldly" or "to rinse completely"; it's gotten so common that it sounds awkward to use the CORRECT form, and it's actually become so commonly misused that it's the first error that the OED has stopped referring to as an error. Imagine, everyone screws up so much that the DICTIONARY gave UP.)
"You and I" is also a very common grammatical error that we've come to accept, as well as the inverse. The phrase "you and me and the bottle make three" is wrong (you and me are the subject) and should be "you and I and the bottle make three". "The King and I" is the name of the play, and I think most people would agree that the title isn't referring to Anna and the King as the object, so it should be "The King and Me".
It doesn't end there. It's grammatically incorrect to say, "I'm taller than him," as it should be "I'm taller than he". A lot of people also use "the most fastest" or "the least tallest" which is also incorrect (although I'm personally dead set against that one).
What I'm getting at is that there's a whole bunch of grammatical errors that we've basically just accepted and adopted into our speech, even though it's wrong - "you and I" is really one of them. It's hard enough to argue that it's not common, and it's harder yet to rationalize spending a lot of money that LSC doesn't have re-recording and repackaging on it.
To some it's glaringingly distracting. To most, it's not even a nuisance. In either case, repairing it would go probably over thousands of dollars (literally), and most people don't care.
-anonymousman from anonymousland
